Calculate the number of business days between two dates?

Question

In C#, how can I calculate the number of business (or weekdays) days between two dates?

Answer 1

I think none of the above answers are actually correct. None of them solves all the special cases such as when the dates starts and ends on the middle of a weekend, when the date starts on a Friday and ends on next Monday, etc. On top of that, they all round the calculations to whole days, so if the start date is in the middle of a saturday for example, it will substract a whole day from the working days, giving wrong results...

Anyway, here is my solution that is quite efficient and simple and works for all cases. The trick is just to find the previous Monday for start and end dates, and then do a small compensation when start and end happens during the weekend:

public double WorkDays(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate){
        double weekendDays;

        double days = endDate.Subtract(startDate).TotalDays;

        if(days<0) return 0;

        DateTime startMonday = startDate.AddDays(DayOfWeek.Monday - startDate.DayOfWeek).Date;
        DateTime endMonday = endDate.AddDays(DayOfWeek.Monday - endDate.DayOfWeek).Date;

        weekendDays = ((endMonday.Subtract(startMonday).TotalDays) / 7) * 2;

        // compute fractionary part of weekend days
        double diffStart = startDate.Subtract(startMonday).TotalDays - 5;
        double diffEnd = endDate.Subtract(endMonday).TotalDays - 5;

        // compensate weekenddays
        if(diffStart>0) weekendDays -= diffStart;
        if(diffEnd>0) weekendDays += diffEnd;

        return days - weekendDays;
    }

Answer 2

Works and without loops

This method doesn't use any loops and is actually quite simple. It expands the date range to full weeks since we know that each week has 5 business days. It then uses a lookup table to find the number of business days to subtract from the start and end to get the right result. I've expanded out the calculation to help show what's going on, but the whole thing could be condensed into a single line if needed.

Anyway, this works for me and so I thought I'd post it here in case it might help others. Happy coding.

Calculation

• t : Total number of days between dates (1 if min = max)
• a + b : Extra days needed to expand total to full weeks
• k : 1.4 is number of weekdays per week, i.e., (t / 7) * 5
• c : Number of weekdays to subtract from the total
• m : A lookup table used to find the value of "c" for each day of the week

Culture

Code assumes a Monday to Friday work week. For other cultures, such as Sunday to Thursday, you'll need to offset the dates prior to calculation.

Method

public int Weekdays(DateTime min, DateTime max) 
{       
        if (min.Date > max.Date) throw new Exception("Invalid date span");
        var t = (max.AddDays(1).Date - min.Date).TotalDays;
        var a = (int) min.DayOfWeek;
        var b = 6 - (int) max.DayOfWeek;
        var k = 1.4;
        var m = new int[]{0, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5}; 
        var c = m[a] + m[b];
        return (int)((t + a + b) / k) - c;
}

Answer 3

I used the following code to also take in to account bank holidays:

public class WorkingDays
{
    public List<DateTime> GetHolidays()
    {
        var client = new WebClient();
        var json = client.DownloadString("https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays.json");
        var js = new JavaScriptSerializer();
        var holidays = js.Deserialize <Dictionary<string, Holidays>>(json);
        return holidays["england-and-wales"].events.Select(d => d.date).ToList();
    }

    public int GetWorkingDays(DateTime from, DateTime to)
    {
        var totalDays = 0;
        var holidays = GetHolidays();
        for (var date = from.AddDays(1); date <= to; date = date.AddDays(1))
        {
            if (date.DayOfWeek != DayOfWeek.Saturday
                && date.DayOfWeek != DayOfWeek.Sunday
                && !holidays.Contains(date))
                totalDays++;
        }

        return totalDays;
    }
}

public class Holidays
{
    public string division { get; set; }
    public List<Event> events { get; set; }
}

public class Event
{
    public DateTime date { get; set; }
    public string notes { get; set; }
    public string title { get; set; }
}

And Unit Tests:

[TestClass]
public class WorkingDays
{
    [TestMethod]
    public void SameDayIsZero()
    {
        var service = new WorkingDays();

        var from = new DateTime(2013, 8, 12);

        Assert.AreEqual(0, service.GetWorkingDays(from, from));

    }

    [TestMethod]
    public void CalculateDaysInWorkingWeek()
    {
        var service = new WorkingDays();

        var from = new DateTime(2013, 8, 12);
        var to = new DateTime(2013, 8, 16);

        Assert.AreEqual(4, service.GetWorkingDays(from, to), "Mon - Fri = 4");

        Assert.AreEqual(1, service.GetWorkingDays(from, new DateTime(2013, 8, 13)), "Mon - Tues = 1");
    }

    [TestMethod]
    public void NotIncludeWeekends()
    {
        var service = new WorkingDays();

        var from = new DateTime(2013, 8, 9);
        var to = new DateTime(2013, 8, 16);

        Assert.AreEqual(5, service.GetWorkingDays(from, to), "Fri - Fri = 5");

        Assert.AreEqual(2, service.GetWorkingDays(from, new DateTime(2013, 8, 13)), "Fri - Tues = 2");
        Assert.AreEqual(1, service.GetWorkingDays(from, new DateTime(2013, 8, 12)), "Fri - Mon = 1");
    }

    [TestMethod]
    public void AccountForHolidays()
    {
        var service = new WorkingDays();

        var from = new DateTime(2013, 8, 23);

        Assert.AreEqual(0, service.GetWorkingDays(from, new DateTime(2013, 8, 26)), "Fri - Mon = 0");

        Assert.AreEqual(1, service.GetWorkingDays(from, new DateTime(2013, 8, 27)), "Fri - Tues = 1");
    }
}

Answer 4

I searched a lot for a, easy to digest, algorithm to calculate the working days between 2 dates, and also to exclude the national holidays, and finally I decide to go with this approach:

public static int NumberOfWorkingDaysBetween2Dates(DateTime start,DateTime due,IEnumerable<DateTime> holidays)
        {
            var dic = new Dictionary<DateTime, DayOfWeek>();
            var totalDays = (due - start).Days;
            for (int i = 0; i < totalDays + 1; i++)
            {
                if (!holidays.Any(x => x == start.AddDays(i)))
                    dic.Add(start.AddDays(i), start.AddDays(i).DayOfWeek);
            }

            return dic.Where(x => x.Value != DayOfWeek.Saturday && x.Value != DayOfWeek.Sunday).Count();
        } 

Basically I wanted to go with each date and evaluate my conditions:

1. Is not Saturday
2. Is not Sunday
3. Is not national holiday

but also I wanted to avoid iterating dates.

By running and measuring the time need it to evaluate 1 full year, I go the following result:

static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var start = new DateTime(2017, 1, 1);
            var due = new DateTime(2017, 12, 31);

            var sw = Stopwatch.StartNew();
            var days = NumberOfWorkingDaysBetween2Dates(start, due,NationalHolidays());
            sw.Stop();

            Console.WriteLine($"Total working days = {days} --- time: {sw.Elapsed}");
            Console.ReadLine();

            // result is:
           // Total working days = 249-- - time: 00:00:00.0269087
        }

Edit: a new method more simple:

public static int ToBusinessWorkingDays(this DateTime start, DateTime due, DateTime[] holidays)
        {
            return Enumerable.Range(0, (due - start).Days)
                            .Select(a => start.AddDays(a))
                            .Where(a => a.DayOfWeek != DayOfWeek.Sunday)
                            .Where(a => a.DayOfWeek != DayOfWeek.Saturday)
                            .Count(a => !holidays.Any(x => x == a));

        }

Answer 5

Since I can't comment. There is one more issue with the accepted solution where bank holidays are subtracted even when they are situated in the weekend. Seeing how other input is checked, it is only fitting that this is as well.

The foreach should therefore be:

    // subtract the number of bank holidays during the time interval
    foreach (DateTime bankHoliday in bankHolidays)
    {
        DateTime bh = bankHoliday.Date;

        // Do not subtract bank holidays when they fall in the weekend to avoid double subtraction
        if (bh.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Saturday || bh.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Sunday)
                continue;

        if (firstDay <= bh && bh <= lastDay)
            --businessDays;
    }

Answer 6

Here is an approach if you are using MVC. I have also calculated national holidays or any festive days to be excluded by fetching it from holidayscalendar which you will need to make one.

        foreach (DateTime day in EachDay(model))
        {
            bool key = false;
            foreach (LeaveModel ln in holidaycalendar)
            {
                if (day.Date == ln.Date && day.DayOfWeek != DayOfWeek.Saturday && day.DayOfWeek != DayOfWeek.Sunday)
                {
                    key = true; break;
                }
            }
            if (day.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Saturday || day.DayOfWeek == DayOfWeek.Sunday)
            {
                key = true;
            }
            if (key != true)
            {
                leavecount++;
            }
        }

Leavemodel is a list here